Biafra: soldiers raze home of IPOB leader in Imo

Home of prominent leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in Imo State, Emenike Osuji, has been razed by soldiers who stormed Umueze Uzoagba village in Ikeduru Council Area of the State in search of the Biafra agitator.

According to eye witnesses, the heavily armed soldiers who drove into the community in unregistered Hilux vans, cordoned off Emenike’s compound beating up everyone in sight as they searched the houses.

Apparently infuriated by Emenike’s absence, the soldiers set the compound ablaze and drove off, the witnesses added.

Emenike has been declared wanted as one of the leaders of the IPOB, a separatist group proscribed by the Federal Government as a terrorist organisation.

The Nigerian military has launched violent clampdown on perceived members of IPOB and other separatist groups in the South East, resulting in killing, arrests and detention of perceived members and sponsors of the agitation for sovereign State of Biafra.

A military source who pleaded anonymity, confirmed the raid, noting that the ongoing operation codenamed the ‘Python Dance’ was launched to end separatist agitations against the Nigerian State in the South East.

According to the Officer, all the identified key members of the group and their sponsors will be arrested and prosecuted.

Meanwhile, speaking to our Correspondent from his hideout, Emenike, who had previously escaped being killed when security operatives ambushed IPOB members returning from a meeting in a nearby village, said his life is in danger.

He lamented that his mother, siblings and other immediate family members have been rendered homeless after the family house was burnt by soldiers.

According to him, the raid by the soldiers was unprovoked, adding that, “I am not a criminal, I have done nothing to warrant being hunted like a terrorist. It is within my right to agitate for my freedom. We are Biafrans and all we are agitating for is Biafra should be recognised as a sovereign state and no longer as part of Nigeria”.

Further narrating his ordeal, Emenike, alleged that the soldiers have direct instruction to kill him and other IPOB leaders in the State, disclosing that, “since the arrest and detention of our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, hundreds of innocent youths have killed by the Nigerian Army and others detained for agitating for Biafra.

“Now my family house has been burnt , I do not know where to go, my life is in danger. As it is, my life is no longer safe, should anything happen to me, know that I was killed for demanding my freedom “.